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Africa
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International Conference : World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture

12-14 May 2005

Managing the Historic Urban Landscape

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the City of Vienna are pleased to announce this international conference, co-organized by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, which will take place in the Vienna City Hall from 12 to 14 May 2005.

About 200 historic cities and urban centres illustrating the diversity of cultural achievements are inscribed on the World Heritage List. This number rises to more than 300 sites inscribed, if the monuments located in an urban context, and towns included in cultural landscapes are also considered. Historic cities are under intense pressure caused by the demands for mobility, housing, commerce, public services and other development-related activities. The need to obtain the support of all actors, be it inhabitants, local authorities or the business sector, compounds the challenge of urban heritage conservation.

While proper definitions and guidelines for the conservation and management of cultural monuments, natural sites, and since 1992 cultural landscapes as the 'combined works of nature and of man' are in place, they are still missing for the preservation of historic urban landscapes. This conference aims to fill this gap. The conference intends to address the challenges of the conservation of historic urban environments, in particular of World Heritage cities, to exchange ideas and visions, to explore mutually satisfying solutions to conservation and development, and to reach a consensus among the different stakeholders resulting in an international agreement on principles and guidelines for regulation and management.

Given the multi-dimensional nature of this issue (architectural-aesthetic, social, economic), international partner-organizations of UNESCO, such as the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Federation of Housing and Planning (IFHP), the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC), the International Union of Architects (U IA ), as well as city governments and real estate developers will be represented at the conference.